MS120-8FP vs MS220-8P

[Uberseehandel]

Is it safe to assume that these two switches are functionally identical? And that what works on one will work on the other, and vice versa (forward and backward compatible), or are there some gotchas?

At this level of switch do we need 16,000 MAC forwarding table entries?

[MerakiDave · Accepted solution]

Correct, functionally equivalent.  The closest thing to the MS220-8 is the MS120-8 and the closest thing to the MS220-8P is the MS120-8FP.  There's also the MS120-8LP for less PoE needs, 67W versus 124W on the FP.  The MS120 compact models are less expensive than their MS220 counterparts so that's nice.  It's newer hardware/chipsets of course, and better MTBF numbers on the 120 models.  Pretty much the same horsepower, and line rate on every port, with 20Gbps (15Mpps) capacity, and larger port buffers on the 120-8 than the 220-8.  To your other question, I'd say no, on this level of switch, you likely don't need 16K MAC entries (MS220-8 had 8K) and if you need that many MAC entries you're probably deploying higher models, but there are some use cases (maybe corner cases) where it could scale like that on the compact switches.  Also remember MS120 is strictly L2 only, no L3 interfaces or static routes.

[Uberseehandel]

Thanks for your helpful reply.

For home offices/professional office suites, silent (fanless) network devices are a godsend. Very often, this kind of installation involves putting switches into the (roof) space above a corner room (think boss's office and bedrooms). It would be really handy to have the option to power these using PoE, and (even) passing through to one or two RJ45s.